


Dinosaur Days

by Kereea



Series: Traitorverse [2]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Brotherly Affection, Comedy, Drama, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-09
Updated: 2016-09-09
Packaged: 2018-08-14 03:35:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7997116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kereea/pseuds/Kereea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four conversations X Drake had in the Traitorverse, and one time he didn’t say a thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dinosaur Days

 “I need to talk to you about Luffy and Law.”

 Admiral Aokiji raised an eyebrow, “What about them, Captain X?”

 “They…okay, I’m not saying this is your fault, but they’re on their own a lot,” Drake said.

 “They’re self-sufficient, Drake. Law’s sixteen now, he can keep himself and Luffy out of trouble,” Aokiji said.

 “But it’s just them and…look, I did what you asked, I helped with their training while you and Garp were out. Listen to me on this. They are _dangerously_ close to being utterly co-dependent and we need to get the anchor dropped on that _now_ ,” Drake said.

 “What makes you say that?” Aokiji asked.

 “Plenty of things. Whenever I fight one on one against Luffy or Law the other’s a twitchy mess. They clearly depend on each other for emotional stability. And when Luffy choked on some food and I took him to the med bay Law nearly _cut my head off_ for not going to him first instead.”

 “Only nearly?” Aokiji asked. Drake could tell the joke was to lighten the tense mood but it still was terrible.

 “I can use Haki, thankfully. At this rate they’re never going to be able to accomplish missions if they’re separated, hell, _function_ if they’re separated if it gets any worse.”

 Aokiji frowned, “That is concerning. Suggestions?”

 “Just…other people,” Drake said. “They’ve got to have some peers hanging around here.”

 “Law’s peers know about his powers and are scared of him. Luffy’s are too young to participate in that kind of training; Luffy’s only in at eleven because Garp trained him some already.”

 “Then…then you, Garp, or Law’s father are going to have to be around more,” Drake said. “I…I guess you _could_ have Garp just take Luffy next time he goes somewhere and we see if they maintain but…”

 “If they don’t there’s trouble,” Kuzan noted.

 Drake nodded. Luffy would probably be safe, he wasn’t too much potential trouble, but Law…Law’s only worth to the Navy was his worth as a weapon. A broken weapon was no good. He’d be screwed.

 “Got any other plans?” Aokiji asked.

 “Yeah…” Drake said. “Can I be officially in charge of them while you’re gone?”

.o.o.o.

 “I want in.”

 “…On what?” Luffy asked innocently.

 “Your stupid plan I’ve been pretending for years I don’t know about. The one you told Nami about to get her to join. The one Coby joined before we left Arlong Park. That one,” Drake said.

 “Really? What complicated plan is that?” Law asked.

 “The one where you two plan to eventually ditch the Marines. Count me in,” Drake said.

 “Awesome!” Luffy said.

 “No, I don’t trust you,” Law said.

 “I’ve known about this plan for over two years and haven’t told a soul!” Drake said.

 “So?” Law sneered. “Tsuru’s pretty much your hero. Can’t see you moving against the Marines.”

 “And Rocinante is _your_ hero, asshole,” Drake said.

 “I’m being used as a weapon. I’m just a tool. You’re not,” Law said bitterly. “So why would you want to leave? You hate pirates. Or did you suddenly get an urge to be like dear old dad-”

 Drake swung, his hand changing into the Giganotosaurus’ before the slap caught Law’s cheek for extra pain, “You little shit!”

 “Don’t hurt Traffy!” Luffy snapped, grabbing Drake’s arm.

 Drake growled at Law, “Don’t you _ever_ compare me to my father! He left for money. I’m leaving to do what’s right.”

 Law scoffed, “Oh are you?”

 “You think Arlong Park didn’t affect me?” Drake demanded. “Arlong ruled there for years and a blind eye was turned, even as he took over other islands! He killed a Marine for crying out loud, wiped out weaker ships! And we didn’t even know it was like that when we landed! No one knew? Really?”

 “They hid it. Likely to avoid Jinbe invoking his Warlord agreement to shield Arlong,” Law said. “…Which is now being used to get him out of jail. After a year.”

 “That’s not what I signed up for when I joined the Marines, seeing shit like Arlong Park. I don’t care as much about Jinbe getting him out for community service but he was allowed to operate for too long,” Drake said. His expression darkened. “I should have eaten him.”

 “You did eat his arm,” Luffy offered.

 “It was very fascinating,” Law added, smirking.

 “When you leave, I’m coming,” Drake said firmly.

 “Great. Got to drag our mother hen of a big brother around,” Law complained. “Oh _fine_ ….”

 “Welcome aboard, Drake!…Is what I’ll say when we have a ship,” Luffy said.

.o.o.o.

“So…” Drake chuckled. “This is awkward.”

 Smoker sighed as he took his cigars out of his mouth, tapping the ashes off the ends. “So…took down a corrupt Warlord. This some sort of undercover shit?”

 “No,” Drake admitted. “This isn’t some false flag with the government capitalizing on my fuckup father’s reputation. For crying out loud, I’m not even the damn captain.”

 “Law then?” Smoker asked. “Should correct the posters.”

 “Law _and_ Luffy. Co-captains,” Drake said.

 “Hmph. Don’t know if the poster makers will buy that,” Smoker said.

 “It’s true.”

 “So is the fact that you lot saved this place,” Smoker said. “…They wouldn’t do it for Law, but…I could put you forward as a replacement Warlord.”

 Drake laughed, “We went through all that trouble to leave and you think we’d go back?”

 “Worth an offer,” Smoker said.

 Drake shook his head. He could only _imagine_ how Law would react; there’d be limbs flying, he was sure. Luffy would turn it down, maybe wave it off with a laugh. Nami would roll her eyes, probably snarkily comment about the Warlord that helped out Arlong. Robin would probably attack and then abandon them if she even _thought_ they were considering it. Vivi, Bepo, and Coby would probably be more neutral…

 Besides, even if he did take it, they’d never let them keep Law, and depending on Dragon the Revolutionary’s actions, Luffy too.

 “It’d never work and so we’re not inclined,” Drake said. “Law and Luffy were planning to ditch since their ensign days.”

 “And you?”

 “Ha! Hell no,” Drake said. “I only knew they were going to for four years. And it was Arlong Park two years ago that really convinced me to join in.”

 “Arlong Park or Arlong getting pardoned after a year in jail because of Jinbe’s Warlord agreement?” Smoker asked.

 “I’m not happy about that but Jinbe has some honor. I’m choosing to believe the ‘community service’ line he fed the higher ups was true.”

 Drake closed his eyes. Nami had about snapped when it had happened, and Coby and Law spent the whole day trading off pinning her to stop her from running into Sengoku’s office and doing something stupid while Drake had tried to make a more…rational case about the issue to the Fleet Admiral. Luffy had made a guilt-trip case alongside him about the ramifications of the situation.

 Namely how big of a ‘fuck you’ it looked like to Cocoyashi. He’d gotten an abbreviated version of the Sun Pirates’ history in return, with the explanation that ‘well no one really knew what Arlong was up to’ making Drake grit his teeth. How did an island get taken over for eight or so years and no one knew? Despite Arlong taking over _more_ islands after?

 Then again, no one guessed about Alabasta either…

“So…you all just going to shove off then?” Smoker asked.

 “Yeah. Law broke into the hospital and looked at Tashigi’s charts. He thinks she’ll be fine but says she’ll need to go easy on that leg for a few weeks,” Drake said. “Hopefully you won’t have caught up to us by then, we’ll feel really guilty if she’s injured while trying to fight us.”

 “She’d be quite insulted.”

 “Yeah, I suppose,” Drake said. “See you around, Smoker.”

 “See you in a cell, traitor.”

.o.o.o.

 Drake grinned weakly, “So…come here often?”

 Robin glared at him. Drake flinched. It had worked on Vivi and Chopper when they were in bad situations…okay they weren’t chained with seastone on the way to Eines Lobby at the time but still…

 “What are you doing here?” Robin demanded.

 “Well I _was_ trying to get our hot historian back but…well,” Drake muttered, indicating the seastone chains. “Fucking assassins. Should have gone full Giganotosaurus and just outright _ate_ someone.”

 “…Would you really?” Robin asked dryly.

 “Eat someone? Guess I would. If I go full dinosaur and am pissed off I generally start seeing enemies more as food than opponents,” Drake said. It made biting people easier anyway. “Don’t get that many chances, mind you.”

 “What were you trying to accomplish?”

 “Hot historian,” Drake said flatly, pointing at her. “In need of rescue. Rescue attempted…and failed. Law and Luffy are never going to let me hear the end of it…shit Nami’s going to fine me out the wazoo too…”

 “You’re a former Marine. You know what they say about me,” Robin said.

 “Yeah, know it sounds like a load of bull. Law was one of the most powerful kids in the world by eleven and I doubt _he_ could have taken _one_ ship out,” Drake said. “And you were only eight. They were hiding something, no shit.”

 “And yet you joined the Marines as a teenager,” Robin noted.

 “Look, when I was a kid…I was happy, okay?” Drake said. “When my dad was a Marine. But then he got a hold of the Ancient Zoan and had the bright idea of trying to train his kid into a weapon with it. Well of course some other Marines thought that was shit and tried to stop him but he killed them and went pirate.”

 “Why not eat the fruit himself?” Robin asked.

 “Too set in his ways? Didn’t want to turn into an animal? Damned if I know,” Drake said. “But he abused me for years to make that ‘weapon’ thing work—it didn’t but that’s beside the point. So when Tsuru picked me up it was easy to slide back into the ‘Marines are heroes’ narrative. They sure saved _my_ ass.”

 “I can see why you might associate them with good things then,” Robin said. He could hear the distaste in her voice. “…What changed?”

 “What do you mean?” Drake asked.

 “Well…you’re a pirate now. What changed?”

 “Oh. Law and Luffy’s fault, totally. I…I kind of knew about Law’s arrangement,” Drake admitted. “Not getting in trouble for ‘stealing’ the Op-Op Fruit if he worked for the Navy. So I knew where he was and sometimes checked on him but…he’s like ten years younger than me, not like I tried being pals. So I was glad he and Luffy became friends but…there was an issue.”

 He remembered it like it was yesterday, how they’d set off some alarms when he’d hung around them for training.

 “They were…Law’s dad kept getting sent away on missions, same with Garp and Aokiji. So they were pretty much it,” Drake said. “I was sure…just, just if something happened to one, the other would break.”

As he’d told Kuzan years ago, they had been getting close to being _dangerously_ co-dependent. These days he was half sure the Navy was encouraging it in order to use Luffy as a check on Law’s behavior. Kuzan probably didn’t know, he seemed to like the kids, but…Drake just had a feeling it was intentional on _someone’s_ part.

 “So you inserted yourself into the equation,” Robin said.

  “Yeah. Law used to mockingly call me ‘big bro’ for a while; he was _such_ a little shit,” Drake said. “But I got in…and then we added Coby and then the plan came out and…I wasn’t planning to get involved, maybe just help them get out if they wanted it so bad…but then fucking Arlong Park happened and Nami joined up and suddenly I was planning which ship to steal right along with them.”

 “Any reason you left when you did?” Robin asked.

 “Law. It…I mean…they were using him more. As a weapon. It was starting to strain him. There was this mission with Admiral Akainu-” he saw Robin grimace at the name, “-where he just came back really broken up about it. Luffy outright told the rest of us we were leaving ASAP, damn the consequences. So we did. You can’t really argue with Luffy.”

 You usually couldn’t argue with Law either…the fact that he’d been letting himself get pushed around had been the biggest warning sign, now that Drake thought about it. It had taken weeks to snap Law out the mindset too…

 “That’s what CP-9 thinks of themselves, isn’t it? Weapons for the government?” Robin asked.

 “Yeah. It’s why I feel a bit sorry for the asskicking they’ll get. Who wants to bet Eines Lobby gets burnt to the ground?” Drake asked.

 “When?”

 “When the crew saves our asses, of course,” Drake said. “Hope they get these chains off me nice and quick, I want to rip Lucci’s hair out with my _teeth_.”

 “…Have you ever scalped someone as a dinosaur before?” Robin asked.

 “Claws only. Teeth will be a challenge,” Drake mused.

 “Interesting,” Robin said.

 “So, okay, plan is we get the seastone off and you pin them down so I can try scalping techniques?” Drake offered.

 Robin smirked, “And just why do you get to have the fun?”

 Drake ginned back, “Well you tell me what you have in mind then.”

.o.o.o.

 This was madness.

 Drake tried to avoid getting swept up in the insanity but it sure as hell wasn’t working.

 The Navy had finally come up with a way to get to Gol D. Roger—they’d turned one of Whitebeard’s commanders into a Warlord in secret and he’d ambushed Rouge while people were distracted by the supernovas and the chaos on Sabaody. Scheduled her execution.

 Well Luffy wasn’t going to let Ace’s mom get hurt, so they’d headed for Marinford as Ace, Shanks, and Buggy’s ride. Whitebeard had shown up as well, his crew apoplectic that one of their own had turned traitor to do this.

 Marco and Ace had been painting the fortress red with flames ever since the sub as surfaced and the fire logia had caught his bird’s eye.

 Drake was just trying to keep track of everyone. They were strong, but they weren’t strong enough to do much in this melee.

 Robin was on defense, keeping the sub safe. That way they could run. Chopper and Nami were with her, Nami messing with the weather to giving the pirates some advantage and Chopper prepping medical. He glanced back—still there.

 Vivi and Bepo had gotten swept up along with him and he’d lost track of Bepo. He thought he’d seen the Mink near Silvers Rayleigh but Rayleigh had moved and Bepo wasn’t with him anymore-

 There, back closer to the rear. He was with Coby, protecting the sniper. Good. Okay, that left-

 A Room washed over him. Okay, Law was accounted for. And Luffy was near Shanks right now, what a place to be, Drake was going to box his mad captain’s ears…

  Hatchan and Jinbe were near Whitebeard. Helping push several Marines towards Ace’s fires. Good stuff.

 He’s lost track of Buggy too. The clown had disassembled and vanished early on. But Buggy was a trickster so he was probably operating behind the scenes. Probably trying to get to Rouge, up on the platform. He seemed to like Rouge a lot.

 Suddenly the Room stuttered and dropped. That was odd, they didn’t usually do that-

 He turned to Law.

 No!

 Blackbeard was there, his creepy black stuff snaking all over, pinning people. He had Law by the throat. Either his Haki was stronger than Law’s or Law hadn’t seen it coming.

 Drake changed form, roared, and charged, the top of his head meeting Blackbeard’s torso. Weakness stole over him at once and his powers cut out, forcing him back to human form even as the impact knocked Teach over and sent Law flying out of his grip.

 Law landed on his ass and stumbled to his feet. “Drake, look out!”

 Look out for-?

 Darkness. Nothing but crushing, suffocating darkness. He tried to change form—the dinosaur was studier than him-but he couldn’t! He couldn’t see, couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe as it tightened form all sides-!

 Then it was gone.

 “I warped him away,” Law said. “Drake, come on we have to move, he can’t have gone far!”

  Drake gasped for breath. He tried to say something but…oh gods of the sea that had been nightmarish…

 “Fucking move it!” Law barked, hauling him to his feet. “Come on!”

  Drake nodded. His throat was still too raw from gasping for air to talk.

 He analyzed the field. Roger was starting to make headway and Shanks and Luffy were moving to meet up with him. That was where they were going.

 Changing and charging would make him a big target…but it’d get him where he was going.

 So he did it.

 It wasn’t nearly as impressive as Oars Jr.’s run but it certainly smashed the Marines’ line up. They were almost there-

 Pink. Feathers.

 Something cut into his legs and he crashed down onto the ice. He changed back to his human form, smaller target, easier to plan with a human brain...

 “No!” he heard Law yelled before the surgeon screamed in pain.

 They hadn’t been ready for this. He never should have let them come. He was the talker, he was supposed to be the voice of reason who said no but he hadn’t…he’d actually _thought they could do this_.

 As Doflamingo shot his parasite threads into Law, Drake wondered if they ever could have done this.

 As the wide-eyes surgeon turned towards him and pulled out his sword, Drake was pretty sure the answer was no.

“ **TRAFFY**! **DRAKE**!”  

 The Haki dropped Marines. Drake couldn’t take joy in the brief reprieve, though, because it mad everyone’s eyes turn to Luffy. Luffy, in the middle of a knot of Vice Admirals who’d just seen a D display that kind of power.

 It just kept getting worse.

 He was kicked by Law so he was on his back. He couldn’t see Luffy now. Just the terrified surgeon and the leering Doflamingo.

 “Let’s make it slow,” Doflamingo said.

 “I’m sorry,” Law said.

 Drake couldn’t think of anything to say.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes I'm evil for that ending. You'll notice character death is not marked so don't worry, Drake Lives. That'll be handled when we do Shanks' spotlight when deals with the aftermath of this Universe's Marinford.


End file.
